Professor Ryan Ko is Chair and Director of UQ Cyber and a member of the Academic Board at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has held senior scientific leadership, executive, and directorship roles across industry and academia, and has more than a decade of board, governance and advisory experience across government, industry and NGOs across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and USA.
Ryan currently serves on the Risk and Audit Committee for the board of the global not-for-profit ORCID, AustCyber Queensland Innovation Node advisory board, Queensland Government’s Digital Professionals Workforce Plan (DPWP)’s Program Advisory Board, Technical Reference Group member of Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA)’s Integrity Systems Company, and Technology Advisory Board member of the NZX-listed (NZE:LIC) Livestock Improvement Cooperation (LIC).
He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology, and an Affiliate Faculty Member at NIATEC at the Idaho State University, USA.
He is co-founder of Cyber Security Certification Australia (CSCAU), and co-founder of First Watch Ltd (NZ) – an industrial cybersecurity spin-off based on his patented OT security and provenance research at the University of Waikato. He is also an advisor to leading Australian cyber security startup Cybermetrix Pty Ltd, and the Silicon Valley-headquartered startup Nyriad.
He has also served as expert advisor to INTERPOL, the government of Tonga, NZDF, NZ Minister for Communications’ Cyber Security Skills Taskforce, and one of four nationally-appointed Technical Adviser for the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, Ministry of Justice. Earlier in his career, Ko was a systems engineer, and subsequently founded two start-ups (one of which was a social enterprise which became an events/conventions management contractor with IMG at mega-events in Singapore, including the inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010).
